Review

There’s music that accomplishes a goal, and then there’s the kind of stuff that captures a spirit. I can’t say there’s anything particularly goal-oriented about The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us, but ideologically, that’s precisely the point. Beach Slang’s full-length debut is a rallying cry, a generational statement of youth that is encountered about as frequently as one’s youth itself. It lives fast and dies young, cramming ten compelling anthems into a twenty six minute bottle that will leave you drunk, dazed, and not giving a fuck about anything besides being young and alive.

Amid fuzzy guitars and reckless percussion, vocalist James Alex proclaims “I feel most alive when I’m listening to every record that hits harder than the pain.” If that isn’t the perfect indictment of how we all feel when we’re seventeen, rebelling against our parents, and despising every second of school that we’re forced to endure, then I’ll be damned. If it doesn’t also encapsulate how you feel when you’re twenty six, sitting alone in a small apartment, and wondering where everyone in your life went – then I don’t know what does. The Things We Do hits you right in the chest no matter what age you are, vividly portraying that angst-ridden part of us that never really grows up. At times it’s brash and filled with boundless energy (“the night is alive, it’s loud and I’m drunk”), while during other moments it proves intelligent and insightful ( “I try to use my brain, but every time I do my heart gets in the way.”) Here, Beach Slang craft a piece worthy of inebriated nights as well as thoughtful introspection, and chances are The Things We Do will inspire you to do a little of both.

It isn’t hasty to say that Beach Slang have captured lightning in a bottle, because it’s more than just a clichéd summation of their achievement. In fact, it describes this album’s energy in a fashion far more precise than I could ever venture to do. At some point or another, we all feel as though the electricity of our existence is being trapped in a confined space, waiting to break loose. The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us pops the lid, vigorously releasing that energy into the atmosphere. It’s liberating.

i dunno whether it's that i wasn't listening close enough to those first two EPs or that the songwriting on this has been taken up a huge notch but i haven't really cared about this band until now. this thing plays to my heart in just the right way.